More Harm Than Good - Children in the Criminal Legal System

Join us for the one-day conference for those representing and working with children in the criminal legal system. Achieve better, fairer, more effective results – improving outcomes for children and, in turn, the whole community.

Across a programme of plenary and breakout sessions, you’ll gain practical tools to strengthen your day-to-day practice, deepen your technical knowledge, and hear about emerging innovation across youth justice. The day is designed to be both informative and inspiring, with opportunities to reflect, share ideas, and connect with colleagues from across the sector.

Lunch, refreshments, and networking opportunities will be provided throughout the day.

• Doing Less Harm, Achieving More Good: Driving Change from Within the System
  How do we reduce harm and improve outcomes for children in the youth justice system? Remand, disproportionality, the complex needs of children in custody and what practitioners can do to drive fairer decisions and strengthen safeguarding within the system.
• Disrupting Harm
  What does it mean to truly disrupt harm in the youth justice system? Drawing on the principles of the Harm to Healing movement, this session explores how systems intended to deliver safety can instead reproduce harm—and what it takes to shift towards approaches rooted in care and dignity. It will challenge practitioners to think beyond the status quo, and consider how power, healing and justice can be reimagined to create more effective and humane responses for children.
• At What Age Does a Child Become a Criminal?
  There are growing calls from senior legal voices to raise the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales from 10 to 14, alongside wider concerns about cognitive development, fairness, and international norms. Drawing on recent judicial and practitioner-led debate, this session will explore the legal and ethical tensions in the current system, and what reform could mean for children’s rights, diversion, and the use of the criminal law in practice.
• When Youth Culture Is Evidence: Preventing Harm in the Court Room
  A morning session for the lawyers: when youth culture is used as prosecution evidence, is it being properly challenged? This session examines the admissibility and weight of police “expert” gang evidence and drill music in light of recent Court of Appeal developments. It will focus on practical defence strategies to use expertise, challenge expertise, address racial bias, and ensure fairer, safer outcomes.
• Out-of-Court Resolutions: How to Deliver Better Outcomes
  This session will consider the relevant legal framework and tools governing out of court resolutions (OOCR), before considering what good practice looks like in implementation—timely, proportionate and equitable decision-making that reduces unnecessary criminalisation while ensuring meaningful support and improved outcomes for children. This session includes insight into how practitioners can use the ORPIC tool to evaluate their area’s OOCR practice, identify strengths and areas for development, and receive tailored recommendations.
• Good Lawyers can Prevent Harm – How to Do Good
  An afternoon session for the lawyers: What does good look like in practice? This session explores how practitioners can improve outcomes for children through skilled, child-centred representation rooted in relational practice and a strong understanding of children’s developmental and contextual needs. In light of the emerging policy focus on specialist training for lawyers representing children, what knowledge and skills are required to ensure effective participation, fairness, and reduced harm in the youth justice system.
• Working With Victims: Responding to Harm in Practice
  Working with victims in youth justice is evolving under a new inspection framework that places children and victims at the centre of practice. This session explores what the changes mean in practice and will explore what has been shown to be effective for those harmed by crime. It will also draw on international insight into supporting victims of serious violence and what effective, trauma-informed responses look like in practice.
• Police Contact and Children: How Practitioners can Reduce Harm
  Police contact can be a key point of harm for children in the legal system. This session explores how a Child First approach can be applied in police custody and wider policing, alongside the legal and psychological impacts of police contact on children. It will consider what practitioners can do to reduce harm and improve safeguarding and outcomes in practice.

Jake Richards MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sentencing, Youth Justice)

Dr Patrick Williams (Custodian - Harm to Healing)

Ciaran Thapar (Director of public affairs and communications, Youth Endowment Fund )

Prof Clive Stafford-Smith (Founder of the Justice League, lawyer and author)

Keir Monteith KC (Garden Court Chambers)

Kirsty Brimelow KC (Doughty Stree Chambers and Chair of Bar Council 2026)

Dr Miranda Bevan (Lecturer in Law, King's College London)

Dr Vicky Kemp (Principal Research Fellow, School of Law, Nottingham University)

Aika Stephenson (Legal Director, Just for Kids Law)

Ruth McGregor Hamann (YJLC)

Mark Evans (President, The Law Society)

Nick Jeffreys (Youth Endowment Fund)

Raju Bhatt (Bhatt Murphy Solicitors)

Gayle Edwards (Co-founder, Empathy Souls)

Emily Maw (Adjunct Associate Professor, Tulane University Law School)

When the youth justice system fails children, it drives reoffending and deepens harm for everyone affected. We need a system that does more good than harm. YJLC exists to help deliver that change. The 2026 Summit will convene world-leading voices to examine how practitioners can protect children from harm by the system, leading to better outcomes.

Come together to celebrate our collective work. Leave with the insight, skills and practical tools needed to see — and deliver — a better bigger picture.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Youth Justice Legal Centre